“In an interview with the magazine Der Spiegel, [Dr Karl] Lauterbach, who himself is a medical doctor and an adjunct professor of health policy at Harvard University in the United States, said many patients believe insurance only pays for things that are proven to help, and therefore it is in the public interest to stop the practice. "So health insurers are dignifying homeopaths through their actions," he told the magazine…"If everybody pays for his beer, then he can pay for his homeopathy," said Dr. Kay Brune, a professor in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuernberg, in southern Germany. Brune added that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that homeopathy actually causes any meaningful and healing bio-chemical reactions in patients, but that doesn't stop people from believing in a practice that has been so deeply ingrained into the German psyche. "Homeopathy has a very long tradition in Germany," he added in an interview with Deutsche Welle. "The founder, Hahnemann was a brilliant physician. But at that time doing nothing was helpful to the patient. In 200 years, the pseudo-science has not taken any steps forward." He also added that under the Third Reich, Nazi medical officials explored it as a "non-Jewish medicine," and even they gave up on it." DW-WORLD.DE Health (13th July 2010)